


stop! (wait a minute)

by seafret (nokomisfics)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (lmao), Fluff, High School AU, M/M, best of its kind, roll with it, teenagers au, um, vintage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6590548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokomisfics/pseuds/seafret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Louis finds out that he's got to have a crush on his best mate Harry, he goes into a strop and talks to an innocent, perhaps overly ambitious someone about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop! (wait a minute)

**Author's Note:**

> i apologise for grammar mistakes & also for the fic in general. thanks to kate for egging me on and always being my pillar of sugars and phosphates (read: my backbone) & to Sing for being lovely

When Louis was seven and came home from school the day before their Winter break, he saw his mum crying at the dinner table and asked, “Is Disneyland cancelled?” They’d been planning to go for weeks, his mum and pa and the Lottie and the little twins, both of them in their prams still crying through the night sometimes. He’d been looking forward to it and didn’t want it to be cancelled, so when his mum took his school bag off his shoulder and said, “No, darling, Disneyland’s not cancelled, your pa just won’t be joining us this time,” his first instinct was to be relieved. Then he’d thought to ask why, and that’s how he found out his first proper father had gone and left them. 

The point, of course, is that he never was one to think things through before saying them; even as a child, his brain-to-mouth filter was broken beyond repair. So when he falls into the seat next to Harry one cold Monday morning well into the seventeenth year of his life, he takes one look at the lad and remarks, “You look like shit.”

Harry fixes him with a disgruntled-kitten version of the Evil Look, which isn’t intimidating at its best, and mildly endearing at its worst. It’s somewhere on the latter half of the spectrum today, so Louis ruffles his hair and says, “Go on then. Volleyball didn’t go well? Tell papa Louis everything.”

“It went _well_ ,” insists Harry, looking as excited as someone with a black eye could possibly attempt to look. “Joel was - he’s _brilliant_. Gave me proper bruises. _Look._ ” He’s pulled his sleeve back to reveal a good number of bruises on his fleshy inner arm, some a tad more concerning than they maybe should be.

“Are you sure you don’t need to get them checked?” remarks Louis lightly, even as Harry ignores him in favour of describing his volleyball match with so-cool-so-hot-oh-my- _god_ -Louis-his- _bum_ Joel on Saturday. Harry is a brilliant lad, really, great sense of humour and everything. Sports just aren’t for him. Not that any number of bruises and black eyes will deter him from chasing the man of his dreams. When he dies by the end of the month out of permanent, irreversible brain damage from being hit in the head by a volleyball one too many times, they’ll print out his story and put it in the history books. His grave will read _Here lies Harry Styles, perseverant till death_. Louis will give a speech at his funeral about how Harry never gave up, and everyone will cry, even greek god Joel. For now, though, he’s just a stupid fifteen-year-old with a crush. So Louis lets him rant, and rests his head on the desk to get in a quick nap before first bell.

Except he gets distracted by Harry’s story-telling. It’s a strangely erotic thought, Harry and Joel shirtless on a Saturday afternoon, hitting a ball with their bare arms over a net. Do they make sounds when they hit the ball? That stupid _ugh_ sound that the tennis girls make when Lottie puts them on over dinner. His mum’s always called them shameless, and then dissolves into peals of laughter when Lottie asks her what she meant by that. _Shameless_ , Louis thinks now, watching Harry’s red red lips move as he stumbles over his words in a youthful rush to get everything out in time. He’s just about to lean forward and shut them up with his own, when Harry’s form teacher walks in - what’s her name, Avril? Aurelia? - takes one look at him and says, stern as ever, “ _Louis._ ”

“Good morning Ms. Anastasia,” he greets graciously, already out of his seat and halfway towards the door. “Good day Ms. Anastasia, good day, Harry!” As he makes a hasty exit, he hears her mutter “ _honestly_ , Louis” behind him, and Harry add, “I’m sorry about him,” like a poor flustered lamb. In Louis’ form room - his boring, quiet, Harry-less Year Eleven form room - Zayn is asleep on his table and there aren’t any empty ones left. He’s about to push him off the seat when first bell rings, just in the nick of time as well, because Louis can be stupid and impulsive when he’s pissed off, but even he knows not to tickle a sleeping Zayn.

 

 

* * *

 

He walks home with Harry after school. They pick up the girls from the primary school, and buy them popsicles and hot crisps from the chip shop down the street, and then it starts to rain so they have to run the entire way back, heads covered with their school bags, all four of them screaming like panicked chickens. At home, he and Harry wipe the girls down with dry towels and get them settled on the pull-out in the living room for a siesta, and something about the way they kiss both him and Harry on the cheek before dozing off gives Louis a weird feeling in the pit of his belly. “Are we going to study today?” Harry asks him in his room later, lying diagonally across his single bed and looking for all the world like he belongs there, and Louis contemplates him from the desk and says, “Is this how it’s going to go, then?” 

“What do you mean?” Harry wants to know.

“This,” Louis repeats. “Like, I’m going to have a crush on you, aren’t I? I can feel it. Contextual clues, if you will. Found the thought of shirtless you playing volleyball strangely erotic, like the way the girls kiss you like you’re their brother, too. Like the way you look on my bed. All of that.”

“I never play volleyball shirtless,” Harry protests stupidly, and then: “Erotic?”

“I _know_!” exclaims Louis, glad that he’s finally caught. “Like a bloody old-fashioned erotica, innit? What are you _doing_?” He addresses the last bit not to Harry, but at the ceiling, where the writer looks in with wonder and bewilderment. It seems like their characters have gained enough sentience to break through the fourth wall. The fourth wall, in this case, being the ceiling. They’d thought hiding in the attic while writing this scene was a safe bet; evidently, it wasn’t.

“Oh,” says Harry wistfully, who is now looking at the ceiling too. “There you are, I was wondering… well. Hello there. I like your eyes.”

“Thank you,” says the writer carefully, and then to Louis: “What’s wrong with the word ‘erotic’?”

“It’s very…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, choosing instead to punctuate it with a nose twitch. “While you’re here,” he goes to add, with the tone of a man who’s just sworn himself to honesty in court and intends to make full use of the attention. “A few words on the plot.”

“Louis,” Harry says, warningly. The writer wonders how many times they’ve broken character before to complain about plot, or word choice, or things like that. Characters usually go with the script; or at least, that’s how it’s always been for the writer. This is a new development. The writer climbs down from the attic and goes to sit on the bed, carefully avoiding Harry’s sprawling adolescent limbs.

“Go on, then,” prompts the writer, intent on making full use of a bad situation.

“Cliche,” says Louis, at length. “To say the _least_.”

“I know - “

“Ah ah ah!” Louis interrupts swiftly, sounding very much like a teacher well ahead of his years. “Listen first. Cliche, repetitive, predictable. _How_ many times has this been done before?”

“Roughly four hundred,” answers the writer meekly. They may not know much about word choice or plot, but they do know their numbers. The numbers don’t look very good right now.

Louis makes a face. “Case in point. And Harry here doesn’t play volleyball - he _can’t_. It’s just not realistic.”

“It’s really not,” contributes Harry reluctantly.

“I had to pick a sport,” justifies the writer, helpless.

“Cricket,” Louis says, and Harry nods sagely.

“I was just being self-indulgent,” the writer tries, trying to steer the conversation away from sport and back to the plot. They’d really like to get this over with and proceed to the bit where Louis realises he’s in love with his best friend, and then kisses him silly. The moment they breech the thought, however, Louis makes another face and shout:

“I can _hear_ you _think_!”

“I see why it’s cliche now,” Harry adds, unhelpfully. The writer fixes him with the Evil Eye, which is remarkably a better attempt than Harry’s own earlier in the day. Harry shrinks under it, and Louis looks on in amusement.

A moment passes, in which the embarrassment of the writer multiplies tenfold, and the weather outside stops being warm with a hint of a drizzle, and transforms into something one may describe with the words ‘storm’, ‘terrifying’, and ‘unnatural’. A chair flies past, strangely enough, followed by a billowing kiddie pool. Nobody screams or worries or cares, really; everyone outside of this room is conveniently asleep.

“Smart,” Louis remarks. “And immature. What _can_ you do besides change the weather as you please and make me fall in love with my best friend?”

“Self-insert,” answers the writer immediately. “And characterise, if your wit is _anything_ to go by.” Louis looks quietly impressed, so they continue: “I can think up plots, think up really long complex ones with OCs and road-trips. And _magic_ , even, if I feel like it.”

“ _Magic,_ ” Harry repeats, still lying down, sounding quite wistful again.

“I can write angst and smut, and angsty smut and smutty angst,” lists the writer. “And Royalty AUs and Hooker AUs.”

“I like that last one,” Louis puts in when the writer pauses for breath. “And the pretend-relationship AUs, those are always fun.”

“I _know_ ,” says the writer miserably. “I just - wanted to write some high school fluff. That is all. You had it with ‘strangely erotic’, though, and I thought that up during bio today. I was proud of the phrase. It was supposed to be _funny_.”

“I found it funny,” Harry tries, half-heartedly.

“Oh love,” Louis says, sparing a fleeting half-fond face for him, before returning his attention to the writer and saying, “The butterflies were the last straw, actually.”

“They were _subtexted butterflies_ ,” stresses the writer, frazzled. “I didn’t _use_ the word ‘butterflies’. It can’t have been _that_ bad.”

“Oh love,” says Louis again, this time to the writer. He takes the writer’s hand in his own and pats it once, awkwardly. “There, there. There’s always another attempt.”

“Tired of making attempts and mucking them up over and over,” whimpers the writer pitifully. “Also, writing the two of you is _scary_. And I don’t want you to break character and yell at me again.”

“We didn’t _yell_ ,” argues Harry, which is fair.

“Berate,” suggests Louis.

“Berate,” agrees the writer. “ _See?_ My own characters know word choice better than I do. Everything’s fucked up.”

“Hey,” Harry drawls. He’s sounding half-asleep. What happens if the writer makes everyone fall asleep? They’re considering it, just to have some time to collect their thoughts and crawl back to the attic. It’s not too bad an idea as ideas ago. “It could’ve been worse,” Harry’s saying. “You could’ve said - “ He yawns. “ - Could’ve said ‘weirdly sexual’ instead’ve ‘strangely erotic’, and that’s just - s’just… Seconds, innit? Could’ve been - “ Another yawn. He’s a trooper, trying his best to hold onto consciousness. “Could’ve been worse.”

“Or,” the writer says slowly. “Wildly sexual.”

“I will hit you with this book,” threatens Louis, except the next minute they’re both on the bed, sleeping peacefully, wrapped around each other like two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. The writer smiles at them fondly, and the storm outside dies down. A ladder materialises for the attic, and once the writer climbs it, it disappears and the ceiling solidifies again. And so the writer sits there on the floor of an attic that they haven’t written a description for so doesn’t quite exist at the moment, so it’s just a white room really with nothing in it except a silver macbook and a quiet writer. And the writer sits in that white room and contemplates, silently, on the magic of words.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment below and forward all psychoanalyses to [my tumblr](http://kelishan.tumblr.com)


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